American Tries English Cask Beer
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- čas přidán 20. 05. 2024
- I traveled from the United States to London to learn all about cask beer. I've always been told that English cask beer is warm, flat, and not great. Is this true? Or is it perhaps some of the best beer in the world? By the end of this video you'll know exactly what cask beer is, how it's made, and what it tastes like. @TheCraftBeerChannel
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Thanks to Johnny and Brad!
/ @thecraftbeerchannel - Zábava
Special thanks to Jonny and Brad! Check out their channel here: youtube.com/@TheCraftBeerChannel
That guy has the same annoying habit I have, talking over the person at the end of their sentences. It's difficult to avoid once you do it. It happens when I detect the other person only has a few words left to say so can deduce what those words will be, but I know it's not nice for the other person. Being in a time limited conversation doesn't help. I'd say it's a form of low key anxiety, of not getting your words out before you forget them or lose the chance.
@@aaronmicalowe ADHD
The big switch to pasteurised beers and the endless closure of breweries started happening in 1970's not eighties. The Campaign For Real Ale got going in the mid seventies.
Ok I was a member of CAMRA back them albeit I was too young to drink. The rise of homebrew started then as well.
Monty Python mention the Rise of pasteurised beers like Watneys Red Barrel.
Btw larger is short for Largerisation, it means that the beer is top fermented. Other beers & Ales are bottom fed. So they are first fermented in the brewer, then fermented in the bottle with the neck down so that the sediment builds up in the neck, so the bottle can be 'knocked back' by removing the temporary lid & removing the sediment, before it's capped. But the beer is still alive like live yoghurt which means it still needs to be cared for. It's why the big 6 brewers liked pasteurised beer it was dead and cold
Americans drinking English beer:
Some 45 years ago we were out on exercise, one of our guys had been on an exchange to America and turned up with his guest - a Ranger.
Physically he was a magnificent specimen, the clean cut American ideal.
Well this guy beasted us up hill and down dale.
Fortunately for us, as we were up near Catterick we'd got Old Peculiar on tap in the mess.
Three pints of that and he was a very quiet, poorly, boy next day.😉
Magnificent stuff, is Old Pec. Just a shame that your legs stop working after the fourth or fifth pint.
my first time on Old Peculiar...........last memory of night , sitiing on a bar stool..........next........waking up lying in a friends bathtub 😀
My local still serves OP on tap. First time I tried it I was 18 (now in my 40s). I wont drink anything else when I am in there. Oh it definitely hits the right spots!
my dad used to drink a bottle of room temperature OP over about 1.5 hours while we sat and watched TV of an evening
Old Peculiar strikes again.
This is the clearest, most articulate and unsnobby explanation of different types of beers I’ve ever heard! Great work!
Columns is beer pi s s
I've noticed that he keeps mixing "ale" with "beer". To clarify: Ale is made from fermented malted grain and doesn't contain any hops (it also has a shorter lifespan), and Beer is made from fermented malted grain and always contain hops (which lengthen the lifespan and can give a citrusy flavour.)
Also beers and ales served from the pumps (as seen in this video) are all draught because they are not from a bottle nor a can.
The guy doing the talking mentioned CAMRA (CAMpaign for Real Ale), who are an organisation which aim to promote what they deem to be "real" beers and ales (which means they're unadulterated by things like artificial carbonation which tends to be done to non-draught beers).
I'm not trying to be snobbish, it just bugs me that some misconceptions still thrive (e.g. Beer = Ale).
@@frederickalbertsYou're not being snobbish so much as very old-fashioned! These days, 'beer' can be and definitely is used as a catch-all term for a fermented drink made from malted barley. Almost any 'beer' (including those defined as 'ales') that is commercially available at any scale will contain hops - I can't think of ever having seen a fermented drink made from malted barley for sale, anywhere, that didn't contain hops. The only meaningful point of difference between so-called ale and other beers these days is between top-fermenting yeasts (ale) and bottom-fermenting yeast (lager). Any other distinction has long since lost any practical application or meaning.
@@Gallywomack Thank you, but I'm not sure what you mean by top-fermenting and bottom-fermenting.
A well kept Old Peculier straight from the cask is a wonderful thing.
toataly Agree with this !
@@bobhead6243 My friend and I got slaughtered on Old Peculier in Kettlewell. When I woke up in my tent the following morning there was a lamb wearing my knickers (true story!). x
It can make you walk funny after 4.
Thank god for Theakstons 👍❤️
I'd need a knife and fork though 😂
I have an American uncle who lived in the UK for a few years.
When he visits, he exclusively drinks cask and spends a lot of time in pubs. When he’s away, he pines for it.
I just happen to live in a spot in England where the only pubs in walking distance don't serve proper cask ales (Doom Bar is the closest thing they have). And I'm not driving somewhere for the sake of a pint unless I'm meeting someone. So I feel his pain. Cask needs to become ubiquitous.
I live in the UK and I feel his pain, as I drink beer, but can't afford to drink in pubs and the only decent cask ale in chatteris is lacons legacy pale ale. but in huntingdon there are loads of better real ale pubs.
The beavertown neck oil is good, but Camden town pale ale is good too, and cheaper, and dry hopped.
Newby wyke brewery is amazing though. Slipway.
A man of fine taste.............
I love cask beer so much! There's nothing better, in my opinion, than a fresh English bitter!
Most Americans get confused, with the whole concept of Lager/pilsner beer and Bitter ale. Never mind cast or keg, then add Porters and Stouts....🤯
@@mr_ozzio5095- Most Americans seem to think Bud Lite is beer. 😆😂🤣
Me too!! I'll be enjoying a couple tomorrow evening!!😁😁🍻
@@sirrathersplendid4825 carbonated water
except for maybe a Scottish cask beer!! 😉
I'm English, and when I travel around I have a little rule: in a pub, always have the cask ale that you don't recognise. Not only does it support small businesses, you can be amazed by the difference and quality available. It's one of those little pleasures in life that never grows old. Where I grew up every Thusday as I'd be walking to school the whole town centre would be filled with the smell of cornflakes from the local independent brewery - they were making cask bitter and seasonal special cask-only OId Speckled Hen for the purists - and I've always had a love for it.
BTW, the whole video and no mention at all of the word 'bitter'? Everywhere I've been in the UK, it's the universally recognised generic term to order a pint of cask ale - useful info for tourists?
That’s also my rule! Cheers 🍻
Bitter is a bit of a throwback term isn't it (to distinguish against mild) ? You do sometimes see it in pubs for a certain style of beer, in my mind lots of real ale wouldn't be classed as bitter though.
Bitter is used to describe its bitter taste, citrus pale ales are sometimes sweet or tart, but not bitter, bitter is darker in colour, red or brown
I do the same thing, if I've not heard of it, that's what I'm drinking.
I tend to look at what the locals are drinking.
As an Aussie I was always told growing up that Poms drink their beer warm and flat, but its not really a very good representation of what it is. The fact Britain is so cold (even in summer) a cask ale is such a great option on any occasion. Any time I'm lucky enough to travel to Britain or Ireland I only ever drink the pubs house cask ale, Guinness or Smithwicks.
Britain isn’t that cold it’s one of the warmest places in Europe in winter and rarely falls below freezing
Some beers are better served cold, others at room temperature. It's all about what gives the best flavour. And of course, not all beers are meant to be carbonated - carbonated beer is a relatively new phenomenon.
I like a cold lager on a hot summer day, sometimes, but in general I'd rather have a proper cask ale that has real flavour and character.
That's true@@lucylane7397, but it's a damp cold at certain times of the year and feels colder than the nominal temperature.
Why would the cask ale be Guinness or Smithwicks? There are hundreds of pubs with different ales.
You need to raise your expectations
That's the difference between an excellent landlord and a decent landlord. My uncle ran pubs for around 40 years and was very respected by many breweries because he cared for the beer.
I ran a pub for 15 years and although not a fan of drinking cask ales I loved the management and care of them, choosing which guest ale to get in next, seasonal guest ales and so on. Good times.
KYLE! Thanks for having us and putting this together. Hope to come visit you some day and make some more great videos x
Thank you for such a clear and unpretentious description of the differences between beers and why it matters, as well as a celebration of proper pubs. Amazed you didn't know the meaning of tavern though! 🤣
British person here, in my early 30s and I do enjoy a cask ale have done for years. There's just something comforting about an ale in the wet and cold months. The trend towards super punchy AIPA's can get a bit much sometimes, I like some of them but they can be over the top. Obviously a refreshing cold lager is a go to on a hot day still. In my local they usually only have one guest cask ale on and regardless of what it is we usually just ask for "one from the barrel" rather than by it's name.
I liked to try ones that I hav'n't tried before but yes some are a bit much to drink a lot of.
The names they come up with are super cringe. Just another pretentious drink lol
Fantastic episode! Has convinced me to make the trek to the UK to try out a good cask ale pub
Do a uk tour your taste buds will thank you
@@MrDunkycraig his liver will curse him though!
The Real Ale pub guide lists all the best pubs for cask ale.
This summer my wife and I took a vacation to London, Bristol, and Southampton. I was excited to try a true cask pulled pint. I was not disappointed. I really didn’t know about true cask beers until Johnny’s CZcams channel. Thank you.
Cask beer in the north is superior.
@@philw8741 maybe next trip.
@@gardencompost259 If you do come to the north try York you will love the place and they have 360 pubs not to mention the most haunted pub in Europe
I’ve only just found out and I’m a 48 year old British man
Hope you enjoyed Bristol ( my stomping ground). Many fine pubs for a cask ale.
The idea of a Public House only really became important when they needed to be licenced. The traditional words were Tavern, meaning a place you might drink and eat. Inn was a place where you might eat, drink and sleep over - hence the oft used phrase 'Coaching Inn' which would also have had stables! There were also places called beer houses. These were often just private houses in which the householder brewed beer, and then opened for business when they had finished making a batch. These were even found in the smallest hamlets.
The word "tavern" must have a Latin origin, because it's still used in some Romance languages like Spanish, ie taverna.
Just to add to the Beer House/Homebrew definition - in larger breweries/towns, brewery workers would be 'paid' in beer, which they would take home and sell from their residence. Overtime workers/families would group together and dedicate a building to selling the beer and sharing the takings - a Public house - where the public could go.
"taverns" were mostly in ports and harbour towns. It's derived from taverna.. Ale House's were the forerunner of your typical village pub.
@@martinjackman2943 I wonder where you got that idea from? I have researched places all over Engand and have found taverns in all sorts of places. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) gives this etymology: 1297- (which is a long while ago, so nothing modern here!) noun. In eraly use, A public house or taproom where wine was retailed; a dram shop. Note, that there is no geographical restriction to ports - although they undoubtedly existed there too!
@@johnorchard4 I'm guessing we're talking at cross purposes.. Names of e.g. ale houses, inns might include the word tavern , just as an inn might use the word 'hotel'.
My point was that you limited sellers of beer to just taverns and inns.
The word tavern is indeed not confined to coastal towns and ports but probably spread from there.. No where in England is far from a navigable river or the sea.
Very interesting and helpful vid. I tried a Cask IPA at a CAMRA festival recently, blew my mind - all the benefits of a cloudy/hazy IPA with none of the bloaty fizz - when it works, it works good!
I did wonder if the video needed an explanation for CAMRA. Did i miss it somehow?
This left me confused, ale dying out in the uk , maybe in London, but here in Yorkshire its a massive boom, real ale places opening all over, younger people are drinking this than the older generation,
Ahh, good to hear, there is hope!!!
Same in Lancashire and Cumbria too! Especially the latter. Cask ale is MASSIVE in the lakes.
Same in Kent though some parts of Kent you would get a very dirty look if you asked for Lager.
Ale is most certainly NOT dying out in London!
Demogrpahic
The American idea of beer is more like that of a soft drink it's basically adult lemonade the British it's more of a food stuff
Porter and stout certainly are
@@DJRockford83 Absolutely. When I used to donate blood I would immediately head to Flanagans for a pint of Guinness to replace the pint that was lost.
@@Drew-Dastardly and it would have slightly more effect 😉
@@Drew-Dastardly Followed by boiled or fried black pudding with mustard
That should round off your loss
@@TheVicar Good idea, though I always grill or fry the black pud. I have it with malt vinegar often. ;)
Two of my favorite channels together? Doesn't get much better
This, love both of these channels.
Regardless of the subject, it’s always great to see someone who really knows their stuff, is passionate about it and can articulate well.
What a fascinating informal chat - so much in this episode. The Welsh word for 'pub' is "tafarn" (like Tavern). Tavern itself is from the Latin 'taberna' which is inn/shop/tavern.
An Inn would be from the Coach and Horses days. The old coaching inns on our roads, where you could eat, stay over and rest/change the horses.
We are so lucky to have such a choice now of cask or keg, bottles or cans - for which I think we must thank the CAMRA organization. We just need to sort out the taxation regime pubs vs supermarkets to level the playing field.
Irish is similar
Just as a general point, one of the reasons pubs are often found on the end/corner of a street was due to their being no refrigeration back then, so by having a naturally more breezy spot, cellars were more exposed to natures chiller!
Crazy! Thanks for teaching me something today lol 👍
Cool fact.....pardon the pun.
I think being on the end of a row with a side lane would also facilitate unloading of beer and a corner would enhance visibility to attract the customer
Not in the north. They were on the end of the terraces (where the workers lived) leading to and from the factory, so the beer remained fresh art the point it was needed!
How is a cellar exposed to the wind when it's underground?
Great vid! Just wish there was more of him actually TRYING the ale.
Yes, I was waiting for that as well!
Such a great collab. Very informative. Johnny always knows what he’s talking about and it’s easy when you ask great questions. Cheers
If you don't like British beer, you haven't tried enough beers, I always took my overseas visitors try real cask beers, they soon changed their minds about warm flat beer.
👍
Lots of good times with Timothy Taylor Landlord.
Great video, great interview. I've had cask a few times here in the US, definitely is something we should keep alive, it's an amazing experience.
This is the best explanation of the differences between cask and keg beers I've ever heard. I've learnt something today.
Thank you! Between you and John this is the best discussion of the value of cask ale I’ve seen,
brilliant video, i watch both of you but really good to see Johnny answering questions for once.... good to see Beak, Verdant and many other; mainly key keggers now producing cask ale as we need to keep it alongside the cold and fizzies
Traditionally a Tavern was like a roadhouse for travellers, serving drinks, basic food and short term lodgings for people on their way to wherever they were going. An Inn would be more like a hotel, same beer, better food, longer term lodgings. A public house was just for drinking with maybe some snacks available.
such as 30 year old pickled eggs.
@@nealgrimes4382 aged to perfection
@@Bridgercraft I miss those type of Pubs, sometimes i come across them in rural areas, but i do miss pubs that where about drinking rather than Gastro.
Always a good video when both these channels get together
The guys casque explanation was bang on and very eloquently explained, and wonderfully nuanced.
I grew up drinking Breakspears Special. I loved the last pint out of the barrel, my mate loved the first. Both great pints, and probably only 24 hours difference, but they were night and day
absolutely brilliant.Excellent content.
Really good questions from your side. Its all about keeping an open mind. I hope you are enjoying your time here and loving the beers......
Not sure if anyone has commented but the difference between a pub and a tavern was traditionally a tavern would serve cooked food, but this distinction is less obvious. Technically most British pubs are now taverns. Hope this helps.
You need to travel up to the North of England. The ale is more creamier than the South. I find cask ale pulled in the south is quite flat. This is mainly due to pubs in the South ignoring to use a sparkler. I don't know why they don't. Without the sparkler, the ale when pulled can look bubbly yet plain looking. With the sparkler, the ale tends to make its own little bubbles forming a creamier ale. I know it's down to personal preference. However, pouring 2 pints of the same ale, one with a sparkler and one without, you get two different tastes. The sparkler being creamier due to the minute bubbles it produces. All cask pumps have the screw mechanism for the sparkler, as that is what the pumps were designed to use. It's just that Southern pubs prefer not to use them.
Even better find a pub using an auto vac. You can build up a really good head.
Northern beer should form a decent head without a sparkler. Southern beers are intended to be quite still, so forcing it through a nozzle to get a large head is just fake. And who wants to drink something fake when there are so many real beers to try?
I had a nice lecture about using a sparkler when I went on the tour of St. Austell. Then I noticed that quite a few pubs didn't use one when pouring some Tribute! I would have said something, but I didn't want to be "that guy"- particularly being an American. A well-kept and sparkled Tribute is a thing of beauty, though.
I know a guy who carries his own sparkler around with him. Just in case he goes into a bar who don't use them. He just asks for a pint and could they use his sparkler. 99% of them say yeah and pull his pint and give it him back. 👍 that way you always get the pint you want.
A surprisingly informative and interesting talk! And speaking as someone who habitually drinks cask (no issue with keg at all, it's just what I drink in my local pub - happily drink all sorts when out and about), I actually learned a good deal, even though I've been on numerous brewery tours. Thank you! My local brewery is Otter plus some smaller ones like Branscombe. Best pint of Otter Bitter I've ever had, and believe me there's some serious competition around here, was from a fabulous pub in the Somerset hills not far from Chard called The Colyton Inn. Straight from the barrel, it was a thing of beauty. It's a stunning location, the food is next level good and as local as possible, plus we stayed over in one of their rooms which was also spectacular. We are so lucky to have the variety of drinking establishments and the variety of drinks that we do in this country.
The collab we all needed!
I had it when I came over for a bit a couple years ago and honestly it's now the love of my life. Every time I come back over I immediately find a pub with it.
I live in Dublin and yes we have amazing Guinness but I really miss proper cask ale, I'm back in the UK next month and can't wait to have some lovely creamy pints
I feel the same when I visit Ireland. It's almost the first thing I do, to go to the pub and have a pint of the black stuff.
Craig try any of the Wetherspoons in Ireland
@@fizzyridertooMore to Irish beer than the big three of Beamish, Murphys and Guinness
@@OscarOSullivan I have, I don't rate it. I wish we could Marstons Pedigree here. Maybe I should give it another chance
You should come to Yorkshire to drink cask ale, up here we pull it through a sparkler which introduces air into the liquid, gives it a nice creamy head, and makes for an altogether better drinking experience.
Very informative! Good stuff guys.
A colab between the best 2 youtubers, great work guys....again
Cheers Martin!
A Tavern would traditionally serve wine rather than beer/ale. Originally from the Latin 'taberna' for a shop or inn. There are still taverns in the UK, but the drinks are no longer limited.
Then why was Yates originally called Yates Wine LODGE?
@MerseyBeers presumably because Peter and Simon Yates thought it sounded 'posher' from a marketing perspective. A lodge is traditionally located in a rural hunting or sporting setting - confusingly, perhaps, with 'lodging' like an inn. All this is quite google-able.
Another point about an Inn is that they were generally licensed to have board and lodge, not just sell alcoholic beverages and food.
Most of the terms sort of fell into the category of 'pub'... which could be anyone's residence that sold alcohol to the public... hence 'public house'
@@MerseyBeerspure marketing, nothing else
Tavern is just a term for a place that sells alcoholic beverages and is interchangeable with Inn and didn't really have a predisposition to either wine or beer in general. If anything beer was much more widely drank in the UK due to the water being unsanitary to drink and the nationwide weather being more conducive to producing hops rather than grapes.
Fuller's ESB, hand pull, second day on tap with just a tad bit of oxidation. #1 of the three or four thousand beers I've tried. It certainly helps if it's in a London neighborhood in a small, ancient, dimly lit pub. Nirvana.
This is an absolutely wonderful thing, so sad that it's going by the wayside for the most part. Every beer aficionado should be required to try some of these beers.
And that Ruby Mild? OMG!!!! Top ten.
Esb? One of my all time favourites.
Fantastic episode... Great knowledge.
That Jonny really knows his shit. Great video, Kyle. I’m a subscriber to both channels 👍. Good content.
Thanks for this. Fascinating.
The man who managed the Southampton Arms has recently bought hias own pub around where I live. He stocks beers I've never heard of some of which are excellent and some rather strange. The pub's background music comes from vinyl LPs. As for 'taverns', the pub I frequent near to the aforementioned pub has 'tavern' in its name and there are pics of it from the 1900s when it had the same name as now.
This video just came up on my recommended... I was pretty surprised within 30 seconds because I grew up on the street next to that pub, haha. The first time I ever went for a drink with my dad, we sat in that window seat. Quite a bizarre thing, but thanks for the video!
Enjoyed that video, thanks.
Pub, Inn and Tavern all have their roots in medieval England. A pub is a public house where ale was brewed and sold to the public. Over time, these houses would advertise their wares by putting a sign up with a distinctive name. This is where the pub sign and naming of pubs originates, essentially as a marketing tool. Ale would go off quite quickly, so had to be drunk quickly, usually in large volumes to get drunk because it was only 2-3% abv, until hops were added in the early modern period. This preserved ale for longer, made it stronger and also gave it a distinctive bitter taste, hence the term “bitter” for a beer brewed with hops.
An Inn was an establishment that served travellers. Most would have facilities for horses and carriages. They would serve refreshments to travellers, such as ale and wine, and also food. You could pay for a bed for the night, though you were not guaranteed to be the only occupant!
A tavern derives it’s name from the Latin Taverna, a shop where you bought wine, which could be consumed on the premises. In England, Taverns were distinct from Pubs and Inn’s because they sold wine and cider, rather than ale.
This is giving me memories as my first job was cellerman in a Real Ale pub and I knew everything after being there 7 years and I looked after 50 real ales and had them on rotation and the celler was as clean as a hospital operating room.
As an Englishman, I love both channels and both styles of beer but my heart will always be with cask (and Johnny and Brad's channel!). In drinking terms, I was raised on it. When it's at its best it's sublime. The clickbait had me ready to rant! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Fantastic vid and I can't wait for more collab with the @TheCraftBeerChannel fellows!
This is a superb description, analysis, tutorial, whatever. Great
Well done that Man .. Great representation of Cask Ale ..
cask beers are effin awesome man
you know you're getting the goods when they gotta pump it out by hand, regardless of the type of liquor
Thanks for a beautifully presented explanation of the ins and outs of ‘cask’
Great collaboration
Yeah. I live in Newcastle and I love Jarl. Unsurprisingly, we get a lot of very good Scottish beers along with our own excellent beer
I miss shipstones and Mansfield beers Notting brewery's now all gone
We have a local craft brewery that features a tap of cask beer in their tasting room. I have enjoyed several, but like their version of an English mild brown ale best.
Lived in a pub from age 5. In those days had to add finings ( made from seaweed) to the barrel/ cask , to clear the beer.
No keg beer then. That came in the 60s with Watneys Red Barrel then a bit later with larger.
Casks at our pub were hogshead 56 gallons and need changing multiple times per night. Nowadays beer delivery can be done in a Transit van.
I love this, good job
Love cask beer. I've never been a fan of carbonation, so when I went to London, I was in love
If you just walked into a tavern, you're probably playing D&D 😂
My thoughts too 😂
My two favourite channels collide, quite simply the best video on youtube
I like to think I know a thing about beer, but I always learn something new from Johnny
Cask / Trads / Real Ales have so much more flavour - with so much variation - absolutely recommended.
Brilliant video. Two heavy hitters on CZcams. Very jealous you all got to hang out and talk about beer!
I've been in love with cask ale thanks to The Craft Beer Channel for some time now and I've been to England 3 times since (one more scheduled for March once again - I got it easier as an European). Gotta keep the cask alive, pumped bitters and pale ales are THE BEER!
Made it to Deschutes Public House in Bend, OR last month and was able to drink two of their ales on cask, great experience
I miss the Tetley’s Bitter I drank in the 1970’s, none of their variants today seem the same. I blame Carlsberg. I hate cold beers, I even let Guinness sit till it gets warm.
I loved the Tetley’s also , beautiful fruity pint.
Harviestoun Brewery is local to me, Bitter and Twisted being a particularly good one and Jarl is my ale of choice on a summer's day - I love that you're shedding some light on that stereotype - if you're ever up in Scotland you should definitely visit the Allanwater Brewhouse in Bridge of Allan, pub with a microbrewery attached serving different cask beers every week
Or try Fyne Ale’s pub attached to their brewery in the heart of Argyll by Inveraray!!!! Drink all the Jarl you can!!!
Although I don’t like real ale, I have a new admiration for it after watching this, who knew it took so much effort to do it all correctly. Great video 👊🏻
That was fascinating.
Now I need a beer!
Super interesting, I’d love to try some real cask ale over the pond!!! Cheers 🍻
It's definitely worth a try. Something that wasn't mentioned in the video at all was the regional variation in serving style. While it's not at all universal, pubs in the South tend to just dispense the beer straight out of a pipe, whereas in the North, you tend to see a plastic 'sparkler' on the nozzle which is a piece of plastic with lots of small holes in it. You can see at 2:28 a beer being poured with a sparkler on it (incorrectly, I would add) and then the next pump over (Oakham Citra, nice beer) doesn't have the sparkler on, but you can just about make out the screw thread where it would be attached.
The difference is that the last bit of CO2 gets knocked out of the beer by the sparkler so it's slightly less carbonated. Also the head has a finer structure to it so it's got a creamier texture and supposedly better aroma but I've never noticed the difference. I prefer the Northern style as it's what I'm used to. A lot of pubs in the South will have sparklers somewhere behind the bar, but younger bar staff might not know what it is or how to serve a beer correctly using it as there is more technique involved beyond "pull the handle until one pint of beer comes out" which is seemingly what a lot of bartenders I've seen in the South do. You can do that for hand pulled cider, no problem, but not for cask beer.
It doesn't generally travel well, and it needs to be properly looked after.
@@magnusbruce4051absolutely and sometimes in the north they have the sparkler screwed on too tightly which overdoes the effect... There is real technique required to pull a good pint with a Swan neck pump....
Sparkler should be backed off a quarter turn for a normal ale, more for a particularly lively cask.
Put the glass all the way up so the sparkler is just touching the bottom (use a glass without a nucleation pattern for all cask always) pull long steady pulls until the head is just below the top of the glass.
Stand the beer and allow to settle for a few seconds.
The put the Swan neck back in but only 1/3 of the way down the glass and top up with a snapping motion
@@dasy2k1 That's a pretty solid description of the technique, but obviously it's much better to show it than describe it!
I worked with multiple peopl who would top it up while the pint glass was sitting on the drip tray. Even if they got the first bit right and let it settle, it was for nothing when they cock up the end!
British ales should be served at cellar temperature.
This was great. I'm from the UK and I've been enjoying beer for 35 years and I learnt a hell of a lot.
The Old Fountain is my local! Great to see I'm not the only one who knows how good of a pub it is
What a great explanation of Cask Beer.
Weirdly though, I have a totally different view of the change in drinking habits. I was born 1961 so was drinking in the late 70s. Almost everything in the pubs in London was lager or very gassy keg beer. I then met a girl from Yorkshire and travelled up there in 1980 and when her father asked what I wanted to drink and I said 'I'll have a pint of lager please.' he said 'No you won't. You'll have a pint of Tetleys.' because in the North of England they were still mostly drinking Keg. I loved it but it was still hard to find Keg beer or 'Real Ale' in London. Then a company called Ruddles started selling cask beers in pubs in the London area as well as supermarkets and it took off. Ruddles soon got bought up by bigger breweries and the quality dropped but the floodgates had opened and soon most Southern pubs were selling decent beers. I think though that even in the South, country pubs had been selling cask beers from local breweries all along.
I once went on holiday in a tiny village in Wiltshire and the village pub there was the very definition of what 'Public House' originally meant. The 'pub' was little more than the front room of a normal medium sized house with the casks being kept on shelves behind the bar and the beer, Wadsworth 6X, served straight from the cask via a tap.
Typical of a Yorkshireman to tell you what you're going to have!
The point about care is well made.
Back in the day if a pub carried real ale it was because they wanted to and knew how to look after it.
Now everywhere carries "craft beer", and it's Russian roulette as you walk into a new pub as to how well it's kept.
Staropramen beckons.
great video - thanks!
Pubs or public houses were originally places where beer was brewed and then sold in somebody's House to local people from the surrounding area. Taverns were mainly found along trade routes and roads, offering beer food and lodgings to travellers. Inns were in city/town/village limits but the same as taverns.
I wouldn’t really call cask beer warm or flat. Compared to draft beer, it’s not as carbonated or chilled. But not really warm it’s cellar temp and naturally carbonated so not flat. I fell in love with Cask beer in the UK. But I’m also a home brewer, so more natural compared to draft/keg beer and much nicer on the pallet and ya do not get bloated as fat without the CO2 added.
A simpler description, I think, is that cask beer is live and keg beer is dead. Keg evolved to make it easier and cheaper for the pubs to dispense it. It did tend to lose some of the flavour in being put into a sealed keg due to the necessatry filtration. Very often not helped by being served cold as this depresses the flavour.
It may be simpler, but it's not really accurate. Very few UK keg beers are either filtered or pasteurised - only those made by the bigger breweries or those making beers that need to be pinbright like pilsners. The difference is in the fact that finished ferments are put in keg, while those that are intended for secondary fermentation are put in cask. Even that's not always true and increasingly breweries are using key kegs to secondary ferment keg beer.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel
we are a very small brewery and filter our keg beer to get rid of any yeast and proteins, no pasturisation though. This ensures that the kegs do not need to stand before seving as cask does.
You can't secondary ferment keg and ensure the finished beer is clear (hazy beers are slightly different).
@@iareid8255 indeed! But most brewers don't worry about clarity these days, especially in keg!
When I was a university there was a pub with a microbrewery attached, the Rising Sun, all cask ales that had been brewed on site. Closing time was when they ran out of beer ready to serve, generally somewhere between 21:30 and 22:00. Very nice beer.
Great video Johnny really knows his beer
Timothy Taylor's Landlord is my absolute favourite - well treated, well rested: it's just wonderful.
Yes I agree I drink in a Timothy taylors pub with 4 or 5 taylors cask beers but landlord is still my favourite.
It is one of the very best, outstanding!
Cook Lane is quality as well, one of the best IPAs.
I'm lucky enough to live a mile and a half from the brewery. Landlord is pure magic when it's looked after correctly. Golden Best and Boltmaker (Renamed in honour of a legendary Timothy Taylor's pub in Keighley) are pretty special also.
For something that is a weak ABV, it's very flavourful. Very good on cask.
Excellent explanation of how cask beer works, I am a brewer at a small brewery where 90% of our beer goes into cask. it's just the best way to enjoy good fresh beer ❤
I have had a few American visitors who have really taken to cask ale. live in Swansea and amongst the favourites have been Jemima's Pitchfork, Proper Job and all of the IPA's from The Grey Trees and Mumbles breweries. After a couple of pints of Grey Trees Mosaic, a married couple who were due to leave that evening, postponed their journey by a day so they could have a session. Real ale has become very popular in the US and they drink cask conditioned ale back in NM.
An important 'thing' about keg beers that is often overlooked is how much the tightness of the sparklet affects the taste. I got used to drinking Tetley bitter in the Northwest which has a head that leaves a spidersweb of head on the glass, and tasted really nice and complex with a citrus aftertaste, when I moved to the Midlands, and found a pub that served Tetley, they forced it through the sparklet to give it a creamy head and sadly destroyed the taste, getting them to loosen the sparklet was very difficult.
Yep! I HATE that creamer head, which is indiously working its way south and west. It's because people who know nothing about ale complain it is flat if it doesn't have a couple of inches of froth
Interesting, I would have reversed the locations with the big head up north and the spiders Web in the Midlands.
I spent 3 years in Manchester at college and was always surprised at how much head the mancunians would tolerate particularly in a non oversized pint glass. You lost at least an inch of beer and got a sponge in return.
Further north in Middlesbrough or Sunderland areas they always had the measured half pint pumps that blasted a half pint into the glass thus filling it with froth, then they had to put the other half in another glass to do the same, and then conduct a type of Japanese tea ceremony to get as much beer as possible in one glass. They didn't have glass washing machines and the local regs said you couldn't keep the same glass for the next round. So they just dunked the glasses in a manky sink of soapy water before serving the next pint in them lipstick etc and all. Just as well the beer did the job.
I have to say, I am kind of surprised that it is only 30% of the beer market that is cask beer/craft ale, I would've thought it is higher than that. I live in London and everyone I know would rather have a craft ale or a cask beer (I'm in my 40's now but I would say that was true since at least my 30s). I think that whilst it is true that it tends to be an 'older person's drink', I think that is the case for a lot of alcohol and food too if I'm honest - people 'grow into' more complex flavours. When you are younger you drink for a different reason and you're less interested in savouring something. I very rarely drink lager at all anymore, but occasionally I find a good one ... however they just don't really compare to a good ale. However, now I think about it, Ale drinkers I know would also split between Ales and Ciders, whereas the younger folk tend to ONLY drink lager, and they drink a lot of it, which probably explains that market share
I expect there are regional differences
The earliest keg beer (excluding Guinness) was Watneys Red Barrel, first served as a pilot project at the Sheen Lawn Tennis Club in East Sheen London SW14, just up the road from Watneys Mortlake brewery.
Really great video guys 👍I am definitely gonna grab a cask ale tonight. Nothing fresher 🍻
I love warm cask beer! Brilliant!
I think 'warm' isn't a very good description, too bad it's so ingrained today. Since it''s actually at a 'cool' cellar temperature.
As an expat English man (left when 7) im trying to learn my heritage and am enjoying English bitter home brews. My next purchase will be a hand pull but they’re really expensive here in New Zealand.
Thank you this is one of the best explanations of what’s happening in the UK I’ve seen.
You’re an immigrant to New Zealand
@@patbaker-ll8ef yes moved here with my family in the 70s and never left. Love it here but still an English man.
@@patbaker-ll8efyup.
Would Coopers in Oz sell them? I sell Coopers homebrew concentrates on the UK, so I presume they would have the paraphernalia also.
50 year old Brit here and this was the most informative thing I have seen this year, Great Vid +1 subscriber
The crossover you didnt know you needed! :)